In Iowa, 2016 has echoes of 2008 but some differences too

Sunday

Jan 31, 2016 at 11:17 AM

MASON CITY, Iowa — There was trouble for Hillary Clinton, right here in Mason City. In a hall lined with a life-size set of storefronts from "The Music Man" — written by local native Meredith Wilson — hundreds of supporters turned out Wednesday to hear Clinton’s top rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

MASON CITY, Iowa — There was trouble for Hillary Clinton, right here in Mason City. In a hall lined with a life-size set of storefronts from "The Music Man" — written by local native Meredith Wilson — hundreds of supporters turned out Wednesday to hear Clinton’s top rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

With the Iowa caucuses just ahead, polls show Clinton holding an edge over Sanders, with former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley trailing well behind. But Sanders is still within striking distance — no small accomplishment for a democratic socialist little known until last summer.

"The energy and enthusiasm and momentum is with us," he told his supporters.

He’s built it in large part by speaking to frustrations over income inequality, and the role that money plays in politics. He’s also benefited from the fact that for Democrats as well as Republicans, there is a frustration over politics as usual, a feeling that with so little prospect for reform, it is time for political revolution.

"Having both (Donald) Trump and Bernie in the race is a good thing: It takes us outside the same old party lines," said Will Symonds, a 27-year-old Mason City resident. Like others in attendance, he touted Sanders’ proposal to offer free college education at public universities. Symonds, who works in information technology, said half his paycheck was consumed by student loans.

The rally drew participants like 44-year-old Loretta Alonso, who said: "I was never into politics. But a lot of what Bernie says about the billionaires, and the corruption, is true."

The Sanders campaign is seeking to repeat the 2008 success of then-Sen. Barack Obama, who won the Democratic caucuses partly by flooding them with young and first-time caucus-goers. It was a haymaker from which the Clinton campaign never fully recovered.

"She ran as the candidate of inevitability, which is really dangerous," said Drake University political science professor Dennis Goldford. That theme can be undermined by a single loss, he noted, and "her people didn’t take the caucus seriously."

But though Sanders is hoping to stage a remake of a familiar production, 2016 may be different.

While Goldford was dubious about Clinton’s 2016 prospects, thanks to lingering controversies over her use of a private email server as secretary of state, he said, "She’s been a better candidate this time around."

"When we closed up the Hillary office in 2008, we picked up everything we could because we knew she would be back," said Cindy Pollard, a Clinton volunteer in Newton, Iowa. In 2016, "it seems like everything is bigger, and better. She’s coming to everything."

And neither Clinton nor her supporters appear to lack energy or tenacity. When Clinton was more than an hour and a half late for a Tuesday-night rally in Marshalltown, the crowd that had packed into the elementary school gym barely dwindled. When she did arrive, Clinton sounded ebullient.

"Spending all this time in small groups and big ones is going to make me a better president," she said.

Clinton also faces a different kind of rival than she did during her last Iowa fight.

Obama’s campaign was fueled by a promise to transcend partisanship, but Sanders seems to delight in it. His Mason City speech was peppered with sarcastic gibes about the Republican agenda, and a promise that "there is nothing I would enjoy more than exposing those policies to the American people."

Although Clinton took shots at Republicans, she said she’d worked across the aisle as a New York senator in the early 2000s. "I know how to find common ground, because I’ve done it."

Both candidates urge action on climate change, worry about stagnating middle-class wages, and warn that a Republican president would undermine Obama’s legacy.

But while Sanders said he was "proud" that Obama’s health care reforms expanded insurance coverage, he added that 29 million Americans still lacked insurance. His solution: a "Medicare-for-all" proposal that would provide government coverage to everyone.

By contrast, "I don’t want to start over," Clinton told her backers. "I want us to build on what we have."

Clinton invokes populist themes of her own, pledging a "fair-share surcharge" on those making more than $5 million. "I want to go where the money is, and the money is at the top," she said. But she pledged not to raise middle-class taxes, something Sanders has previously suggested he might do in order to expand health coverage. (He contends the hikes would be offset by reduced out-of-pocket medical costs.)

Clinton’s supporters argue that Obama struggled to pass a more modest agenda than the one Sanders has outlined, and there is no sign Republicans in the next Congress will be more tractable.

Sanders has "good ideas, but he’ll never get them through Congress," said Sharren Schuler, who traveled to the Marshalltown event from adjoining Story County. Clinton, she said, "has a balance between being tough and being able to get things done."

Schuler’s son-in-law, Dennis Vaughn, agreed. Clinton is "probably the most experienced presidential candidate in history," he said. "Bernie’s so extreme it isn’t realistic. But it attracts votes."

But if Sanders is accused of being too idealistic, his supporters say Clinton is too willing to compromise her ideals. They note that while Sanders opposed the war in Iraq, Clinton supported it as senator.

As for the hurdles Sanders would face as president, "You can’t just say, ‘This isn’t going to work,’" countered Symonds, the Sanders supporter. "You have to try."

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